Hong Kong sees sharp increase in virus cases

Thailand and Singapore strengthened curbs on air travellers. Singapore's Health Ministry said nurses would from today meet all incoming flights from affected areas, to check passengers to the mystery pneumonia virus.

"Based on the latest information, this disease is more infectious than we thought," Singapore's health minister, Lim Hng Kiang, told reporters.

Hong Kong's health secretary, Yeoh Eng-kiong, said yesterday 60 more infections had been reported, making a total of 530. One more person had died, taking the number of deaths to 13.

"The numbers will go up for one or two weeks," he added. The prediction will fuel the fears of the city's seven million residents as officials try to rein in a disease that has killed 58 people worldwide and infected 1,612.